My two cents:
1. The exception written for those who have a CHL and are carrying a concealed handgun, as written, pretty clearly allows the same person to carry "illegal knives."
2. Much of the lawyer's trade, both on the side of the state (prosecution) and the defense, lies in arguing why other parts of the law, previous case law, interpretation, and reading between the words, delving into "intent," mean that law as written really means something else.
3. DAs are given great latitude in pursuing crimes, perceived crimes, and events that are on or beyond the fringe of criminal activity. They are very seldom punished for overdoing it. Police officers are not accorded the same degree of latitude, but it is pretty broad as well.
4. Citizens, on the other hand, can be severely punished for what a police officer, DA, or judge perceives as a possible crime, and there is very little the citizen can do about it even if ultimately exonerated. And yes, just being accused of a crime, never mind arrested and jailed, tried, convicted, etc, is punishment to one who generally obeys the law.
5. Ergo, As much as I think the
written law is pretty clear, because of the uncertainty in
enforced law, I am still going to be careful about the knives I carry in Texas. (As a side note, once again Indiana has exceptionally good knife laws as compared to Texas, just as they do with gun laws. Switchblades and ninja stars are illegal, but beyond that, fixed/folder, long blade short blade double edge blade -- carry away!)
speedsix wrote:...those among us who are best trained in the defensive/offensive use of a knife might kick in here...I feel more than adequate with a 4" fixed blade of a clearly legal style...and I would shoot a man who was after me with a 2 1/2" blade as quickly as I would shoot a man with a showy, intimidating, look-what-I-have knife as pictured here...it's not so much the size of the blade as the size of the man wielding it...only a fool goes to a knife fight...
I don't know if I am "best trained" but I have practiced regularly defending against (and with) a knife for the last year, and have formed some observations and beliefs. In general, I agree with speedsix, but here are some of my thoughts.
1. Anyone who is after you with any length blade, spike, ballpoint pen, nail, broken bottle, what-have-you is very dangerous, and it doesn't matter if it is wielded by man, woman, or child -- you are in big trouble and better act fast. It doesn't take much training or effort to use a knife offensively, but it takes a lot of effort to effectively defend against it. (If you have trained to use a knife for attack, you are just that much more effective.) You better have a really good reflex for dealing with that initial onslaught, and if your reflex is to push off the attacker with one hand while drawing a handgun (or knife) with the other (and probably backing up at the same time) the next five seconds are going to be very ugly for you.
2. At close-to-touching distances (i.e. where most citizen/thug interactions occur), a knife is more dangerous/effective than a gun. And pretty much by definition, a knife attack is going to be at close-to-touching distance. A knife cuts and stabs in many more dimensions, but is harder to defend against (For one example: you can grab the barrel of a gun and deflect; not recommended to grab the blade of a knife.)
3. Short blades do seem to be faster -- but long blades give reach, and that is not to be dismissed, and neither is the intimidation effect. Longer/heavier blades are slower-- but they are not slow. The people I know who are best with a knife often carry the biggest one they can reasonably conceal, and there's probably more than one of them would carry a full-sized bowie if he could. Some specifically choose heavy bladed knives, so that when they crack you across the hand with the blade, it not only cuts, it will likely break some bones.
A longer blade is probably slightly easier to effect a disarm on than a short one because of the leverage possible, but it is not enough possibility to warrant choosing a shorter blade over a longer one. However, despite the advantages a longer blade might have, I would not laugh at a shorter one. A four inch fixed is just dandy (I have a 3.5 myself.)
Also, the intimidation effect of a bigger knife should not be dismissed. It shouldn't be relied on, but it is there. In Lt Col Grossman's book
On Killing, IIRC he notes that one of the hardest, most psychologically difficult things for a human to do is to stab, to plunge a blade, into another human. Conversely, encountering someone who is apparently willing to stick a blade in you is one of the most frightening things, more so than getting shot (which is why I think there are all these knife laws and heebie-jeebies about knives.) He indicated that determined bayonet charges, even against people armed with guns, seldom result in very many people getting stabbed -- because it is so darn scary that potential bayonetees turn and run. So the Crocodile Dundee "That's not a knife. This is a knife!" thing is not entirely a Hollywood fiction -- people are scared of knives, and bigger knives are scarier.
(We spend a lot of time worrying about scaring and intimidating the public -- occasionally we should also think about scaring and intimidating our criminal opponents
)
(Also btw, if you haven't read Grossman's
On Killing, you should. It is only a few dollars in Amazon's Kindle book shop, and you can read it on your home computer using Amazon's Kindle Reader for PC, which is a free application. Really. Go read it.)
4. Assuming equal accessibility, fixed blades are more reliable/foolproof for deployment -- you don't have to get them open like a folder. They also do not have a lock that might fail and close the blade on your fingers. For the same size knife, you can get a fixed blade more inexpensively than a folder, especially when you are looking to buy a folder with a decent locking mechanism (which what you should be doing for a defensive folder).
5. Folders, however, let you carry a longer/bigger (when opened) knife in the same or lesser length space (when closed) as a fixed blade, and even for the same size blade, may give you more reach than a fixed blade. Look at the Cold Steel Voyager XL (5.5" blade) and most 5.5 inch fixed blades -- the handle on the Voyager is longer than the handles on most fixed blades, so you can "choke back" on it and extend the reach of your blade another inch or two or three. The Voyager (and Spartan) handle is designed to facilitate this.
6. The drawback to folders are a) you have to unfold it to use the blade, and b) the lock must be STRONG. Deploying a folder when someone is climbing all over you is harder than deploying a fixed blade. It's bad enough if you are in the open, but if you are shoved up against a wall or on the ground with someone on your chest, it gets even more interesting. As far as the lock: I would not trust the locks on most inexpensive folders. I have a CRKT M-16, which is a quality made knife, but even on that I would not like to depend on its locking mechanism, and having to use the sliding lock dealy is not tactically sound for a fighting knife, I think. A lot of folding lock mechanisms can be made to fail rather quickly if you wiggle the blade 90 degrees to its usual direction of travel, i.e. sideways. I do not like the thought that if I slam the blade somewhat off center on some thug's skull, or catch it in his leather jacket and pull sideways, that the mechanism will fail and let the blade close. The Cold Steel Triad lock, like used on the Spartan and Voyager XL, seems pretty strong, and that's what I have gone with (Spartan).
As I said, I do not consider myself an expert knife fighter by any means, just a guy who has taken knife defense seriously for the last year+ and come to some conclusions (always subject to modification based on serious evidence).
If I could change just one element of Texas' knife laws, I would legalize "daggers" so that I could have a double edge fixed blade. I think the whole knife code should be scrapped. As far as carrying full-sized Bowies and such, I see it like Open Carry - I think it should be legal but I wouldn't do it myself -- I would still prefer to conceal my knife, just like my gun.
And finally, just like a handgun, carrying a small knife is much better than having a big one in the drawer back home. A
hideway knife in the hand is much better than a Bowie in the display cabinat (and is much better than fingernails!).
Well, I guess since it specifically mentions guns, but doesn't say anything about an illegal knife or club having to be concealed it must be okay.
on the "...hope you know how to use it well..." I've read somewhere that it was good to smear Vaseline on the blade of any knife you didn't know how to use...and we'll leave it there...